The bus was travelling from Herat to Qala-e-Naw on Sunday morning when the driver lost control, and the vehicle veered off the highway and rolled onto its side. At least nine people died and 35 were hurt, Taliban officials said, with women and children among the dead.
The crash came around 11 a.m. on February 22, 2026, along the highway linking Badghis and Herat provinces, in the Sabzak stretch that falls within Qala-e-Naw’s sixth security district. Qala-e-Naw is the centre of Badghis province in western Afghanistan. Sediqullah Sediqi, a spokesman for the Taliban provincial police command, attributed the accident to negligence; other accounts described it as reckless driving.
Several of those hurt were said to be in serious condition, and officials cautioned that the death toll could still climb. Police, working with residents, rushed the wounded to nearby medical facilities, and traffic police opened an investigation into how the crash happened.
The wreck was another entry in a long pattern. Road crashes are common across Afghanistan, where poor road conditions, ageing vehicles and reckless driving feed a steady run of deadly incidents, and the province’s highways see them again and again.
Sources
- 9 killed, 35 injured in bus crash on western Afghanistan highway | Amu TV
- Nine killed, 35 injured in Afghanistan highway bus crush
